The Green Woods
The minstrel sat in the corner of the inn, letting his fingers play absently with the strings of his harp while he listened with full attention, and a blank expression, to the murmured conversation at the bar. His pale-gold hair, the color of leaves fallen in the autumn seasons, caught the light of the slowly fading sun, streaming through the window at his side. It cast the golden light into his well-shaped face, highlighting the fine features. His expression was still and thoughtful, a short beard emphasizing, rather than hiding, it. Only the minstrel's eyes gave away just how deeply interested in the conversation at the bar he was. His eyes were leaf-green and intense, staring off into space.
The harp he played was made of fine, dark wood, shaped and tuned by a skilled hand. The harp's sound was light and rich, like the laughter of water streaming through a brook while the birds high above added their voices to its melody. The song he played invoked memories of children playing among the trees, with the wind in their fair hair. It was an old Rhiathon song, one that he had been playing for many long years. He plucked it out slowly, without thinking, now. The minstrel played on, his nimble fingers attending what his mind was not.
The minstrel was newly from the woods, and the language the men at the bar spoke was strange to his ears. It would have seemed pointless to many for him to pay such attention to the words they were speaking, but the minstrel had caught the sound of a name that was familiar to him. It was a name that meant much to him, and so he listened.
Lionesse, they had said. She was that fearless queen among thieves, that daring highway-robber whose adventures rang through every hall and town. Even the minstrel had heard that name, deep in the Rhiathon woods of his birth. He had heard it and had answered to its call.
The Inn-keeper came into the room from the kitchen at the back. It was a warm day and sweat beaded his bald pate. He put a bowl of something in front of one of the men, his eyes on the minstrel in the corner. The Inn-keeper frowned and said something low to the men at the bar, nodding in the minstrel's direction, as if emphasizing something he was saying. He wiped the sweat from his face with a rag, still staring in the minstrel's direction.
The minstrel noticed the pointed glance and he, carefully and quickly, turned his attention back to the old tune he was playing. Men from outside of the woods were strange about things such as this, he knew. It was as if they didn't know that speaking in a public place made their words public as well. If the men had truly wanted privacy then they would have been speaking elsewhere. There was little harm, the minstrel thought, in listening to bar-talk. Few things of value were spoken in a place like this.
The minstrel did not look up from his harp as heavy boot-treads crossed the floor, made heavier, and louder, with the owners' irritation. The combined breathing of the men who towered over him was loud in the minstrel's ears, but he paid them no mind, lending his attention, instead, to a new tune, one that echoed with the song of the trees in the spring time. It was a haunting song, and its sweet sound filled the inn.
"Got a problem?" One of the men demanded, roughly pulling the minstrel's arm away from the harp, making the strings jangle in discord. The minstrel looked calmly up at him, a slight frown touching his features. The man glowered back. "You been staring at us?"
"Seili?" The minstrel asked, concern touching his face. He subtly shifted his harp back, out of danger, should there be trouble. "Neit compren."
"Don't bother with him, Divin," the other man said, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder in a firm grip. He had a nice, round face, and wasn't looking for trouble. He shook his friend's shoulder lightly. "Looks like he's one of them woods-people, the Rhiathon, you know. He doesn't speak anything but wood-speak. He's not worth any trouble. Come on back to the bar and have another drink."
The minstrel listened hard, his brows dropping low in concentration, trying to understand what the man was saying. The only word out of the bunch that the minstrel had understood was Rhiathon' and surely that was what he was, though that left no explanation for the man's gruff manner. Being Rhiathon was hardly a crime, though it might as well have been with the way he had been treated since leaving the woods. He nervously loosened a harp string and fiddled with tightening it again. He did not want any trouble, though it seemed to have chosen him as a traveling companion ever since he had left the green haven of the woods.
Divin threw off his friend's arm, his face turning, if possible, even redder than it had been before. He was a young-looking man, despite the heaviness of his face, and had the physique of a man who had labored hard all of his life. He did not look to be someone to be reckoned with. He scowled at his friend. "He's been staring at us all evening. I've seen him. The Inn-keeper saw it too, didn't you Habi?"
The Inn-keeper nodded. He flushed, his bald head and already florid complexion turning scarlet. His waist-line was the result of too many years of sampling his own stew and his temper was even less appealing. He dried his beefy hands on a filthy dish-towel, his face a scowl matching Divin's. "He has. Seemed mighty interested in what you had to say."
Divin sneered. "An' we're supposed to believe that he doesn't understand what we're saying? That's sun-spiders if you ask me. It doesn't make a lick o' sense. Why'd he be listening to us talking if he didn't understand us?"
The minstrel looked back and forth between the speakers, an obviously bewildered expression on his face. He looked to the Inn-keeper for help, but there was none to be found there. The greasy man was just as much part of the problem as Divin. People in this village did not like outsiders much, apparently. It was a feeling that seemed prevalent in this area, at least by the minstrel's experience. Every town had its own way of dealing with outsiders, and that was what the minstrel was, from his green cloak to his harp, cradled in the crook of one arm.
The minstrel stood up slowly, trying not to attract the attention of the arguing men. He did not want this conversation to turn to violence, if he could help it. He edged subtly backwards, towards the door.
"Hey, now! Where are you off to?" Divin demanded, grabbing the minstrel by the arm with a beefy hand.
In a flash the large man was pinned to the floor, his arm twisted up behind him. The minstrel was suddenly kneeling with one knee pressing into the middle of Divin's back and one hand on a dagger at the man's throat. The harp was still held lightly in the other arm. The minstrel's expression was calm and the dagger was still and unwavering in his hand, hair-breadths from Divin's thick neck.
Divin's companion and the Inn-keeper stepped back, eyes wide with astonishment, and more than a little fear. The minstrel, just as quickly as he had pinned the unruly Divin to the floor, arose fluidly and slid his knife back into a hidden sheath in one of his boots. He quickly and carefully gathered up his few belongings and the last of a meal he had scarcely touched, wrapping it up tightly in a cloth from his pack. The three men stared as the minstrel tossed a few coins on the table and nodded to the Inn-Keeper before silently gliding through the door.
"Well, I'll be," Divin said, breathlessly and more than a little admiring as his friend and the Inn-keeper helped him to his feet. "He was quick. I've never seen anything like that in my whole life! I can't remember the last time a man pinned me down like that." He made his way back towards the bar. "I'll have me another mug, Habi. I swear, my nerves are jangling like that fellow's harp strings."
On the street, the minstrel made his way through the every day early evening activities of the town. He glanced backwards once, towards the inn, but instinct told him that neither Divin nor his companions were interested in following him. Not today, at least. He breathed an inward sigh of relief, letting himself relax.
The minstrel marveled at the ignorance of these people. They evidently, and mistakenly, believed that even a Rhiathon musician would not be trained to defend himself. Perhaps, he considered generously, it was not stupidity. It was because all of their minstrels were either too old or too crippled for any other work. That was quite typical in a town like this one. Only those unable to work in the fields could be spared for something as insignificant as music. The minstrel snorted. Only a small town such as this would be so blind as to consider music insignificant. Didn't they know their history? Had they so soon forgotten the ancient Warrior-Bards? They had wielded a power that was lost in this time and age.
The minstrel wished, yet again, that he had taken the time to study the languages that existed outside of the woods. Perhaps, then, he would have been able to avoid situations, like this one had been, completely. He liked to avoid trouble when and if possible. Divin had not really deserved being pinned to the floor, but, if past experiences were any indication, it may have come to worse than that if the situation had been prolonged.
The minstrel sincerely regretted having to do such things to ignorant people. They could not help being ignorant, and he would have been able to avoid the whole thing, had he known the language. Somehow, he had never thought it important to learn other languages, until he left the woods and realized just how crippled he was without that knowledge. It was as if he had tried to live out in the woods without his bow. He was struggling needlessly.
Not that the Rhiathon actually encouraged people to study the outside world at all. The Rhiathon were a private people, keeping to themselves, and blocking out the outside world as much as possible. Even if the minstrel had desired to learn the outside languages it was possible that he would not have been able to. There were few Rhiathon that had any contact with the outside world, and they would have been unlikely to be willing to teach him.
The truth was, he had never learned because he had never even considered for a moment that he might ever be leaving the woods at all. He had fully expected to spend the full extent of his years among the shady trees. He had never even felt the desire, that pulled so many, to explore the world beyond the Rhiathon realm.
In the end, though, something had drawn him out from his beloved trees. Something had dragged him from the woods he loved, the woods that were part of his blood and his life. He had never taken that something into account in all of his plans. Even now, as homesickness filled his very soul, the call of that thing drove him on, as a salt in his blood. It had been there since he had heard the first of the stories, and had grown past ignoring as time went on. It set his blood on fire and drove him ever forward, further and further away from his home. It was a fever in him, but a welcome one, and he had raced from his green home with his arms stretched out towards it.
Lionesse. It was that mysterious hero of the people of the Island, the Gauldra, that had drawn him from his peaceful haven. It was because of her that every day he drew further and further from his home.
Even in the woods they had heard of her, riding down fearlessly on those who would travel across the territory she had claimed as her own, disarming their guards, stripping them of their wealth, and riding off like a phantom, untraceable, ever valiant, and she only a maid, and beautiful, if the stories spoke true. She was an outside hero that even the Rhiathon could honor and respect. She was full of a courage and law all to herself. It was Lionesse that had dragged him from his precious woods and it was she that he was seeking.
"And I'm in love with her," he thought to himself.
He moved forward faster, his long legs moving easily, clad in the green of his home. His heart beat a little faster. A tune sang in his head and a slight smile touched his face, making him look all the world like a woods-spirit, moving among the mortal men of the day-lands, clad in his green, with his harp at his side. He was a creature born of the outsiders' stories, had he known it, from a time before the Rhiathon had slipped away from the world into their green woods and forest glades.
The people of the village stopped to stare at him. His unusually tall and slender body clad in green and his golden, bearded, handsome face stood out among them. He was an exotic form among the drab browns and grays of their town.
The minstrel did not see them stop to stare. He did not notice when their conversations halted as they stared after him, almost wistfully. He did not see the hungry eyes of the young ladies and the old, feeling, as they saw him, his youth and energy of purpose. He did not see the children that rushed to follow him, not even daring to touch his cloak. He walked on, oblivious to anything but a girl-creature that haunted his thoughts by the name of Lionesse.
He left the village humming to himself. The townspeople turned back to their conversations and their business, dismissing him, even as they forgot their day-dreams until the cool, silence, of night, when they could awaken again for the space of a few, short, hours.
If those that had sharp eyes had been watching, they would have seen several shadows glide soundlessly from the trees to surround him. The silent shadows gathered around him in a circle of friendship with a flash of fur and feather. Had the villagers seen it they would have remembered the old tales of the Rhiathon, that they had strange magics, magics that were frightening in their strangeness. As it was, the town had more than enough stories to tell that night.